NEW VATICAN PLANS LETS ANGLICANS CONVERT EASIER

VATICAN CITY—The Vatican announced a stunning decision Tuesday to make it easier for Anglicans to convert, reaching out to those who are disaffected by the election of women and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church's conservative ranks.
Pope Benedict XVI approved a new church provision that will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining many of their distinctive spiritual and liturgical traditions, including having married priests.
Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, announced the new provision at a new conference.
In the past, such exemptions had only been granted in a few cases in certain countries. The new church provision is designed to allow Anglicans around the world to access a new church entity if they want to convert.
The decision immediately raised questions about how the new provision would be received within the 77-million strong Anglican Communion, the global Anglican church, which has been on the verge of a schism over divisions within its membership about women bishops, an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions.
The Anglican's spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, downplayed the significance of the new provision and said it wasn't a Vatican commentary on Anglican problems.
"It has no negative impact on the relations of the communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic church as a whole," he said in London.
Conservative Party lawmaker Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England because of its policies for the Catholic Church, welcomed the Vatican's decision.
"I'm delighted if it does become easier, because when we had the last big exodus in 1992 over the ordination of women, the Catholic Church was not ready," she said in London. "There were enormous discrepancies up and down the country, and the direction from the Vatican came late in the day."
The new Catholic church entities, called personal ordinariates, will be units of faithful established within local Catholic Churches, headed by former Anglican prelates who will provide spiritual care for Anglicans who wish to be Catholic.
They would most closely resemble Catholic military ordinariates, special units of the church established in most countries to provide spiritual care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents.
"(This will) facilitate a kind of corporate reunion of Anglican groups" into the Catholic Church, Levada said.
Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.
The new canonical provision is a response to the many requests from Anglo-Catholics who want to come back, increasingly disillusioned with the progressive bent of the Anglican Communion. Many have already left and consider themselves Catholic but have not found an official home in the 1.1-billion strong Catholic Church.
By welcoming them in with their own special provision, Benedict has confirmed the increasingly conservative bent of his church. The decision follows his recent move to rehabilitate four excommunicated ultra-conservative bishops, including one who denied the full extent of the Holocaust, in a bid to bring their faithful back under the Vatican's wing.
Levada declined to give figures on the number of requests that have come to the Vatican, or on the anticipated number of Anglicans who might take advantage of the new structure.
One group, known as the Traditional Anglican Communion, has made its bid to join the Catholic Church known. The fellowship, which split from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1990, says it has spread to 41 countries and has 400,000 members, although only about half are regular churchgoers.
The new canonical provision allows married Anglican priests and even seminarians to become ordained Catholic priests—much the same way that Eastern rite priests who are in communion with Rome are allowed to be married. However, married Anglicans couldn't become Catholic bishops.
The Vatican announcement immediately raised questions about how the Vatican's long-standing dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury could continue. Noticeably, no one from the Vatican's ecumenical office on relations with Anglicans attended the news conference; Levada said he had invited representatives to attend but they said they were all away from Rome.
Just last week, the Vatican's top ecumenical official, Cardinal Walter Kasper, told reporters: "We are not fishing in the Anglican pond," when asked about the Vatican's negotiations with would-be converts.
Levada stressed that ecumenical dialogue with the global Anglican church would remain a priority. But he said the goal of that dialogue for 40 years had been to achieve "full visible unity."
To downplay suggestions of poaching, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster and Williams, the Anglican leader, issued a joint statement saying the decision "brings an end to a period of uncertainty" for Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church.
And at a press conference in London, Williams tried to put the best face on the decision.
"It has no negative impact on the relations of the communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic church as a whole," he said.
But Williams' representative in Rome, the Very Rev. David Richardson, called the Vatican's decision "surprising," given that the Catholic Church in the past had welcomed individual Anglicans in without creating what he called "parallel structures" for entire groups of converts.
"The two questions I would want to ask are 'why this and why now,'" he told The Associated Press. "Why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to embrace that particular method remains unclear to me."
Also unclear, he said, was the Vatican's target audience: those Anglicans who have already left the Anglican Communion, or current members. Levada said it covered both.
"If it's for former Anglicans, then it's not about our present difficulties, then it's people who have already left," Richardson said. If it's current Anglicans, "There is in my mind an uncertainty for whom it is intended."
The Anglican Communion has been roiled for years over disagreement on the role of women. But the long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret the Bible erupted in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
Williams has struggled ever since to keep the church from splitting, frustrated by moves by churches in the United States, Canada and elsewhere to bless gay relationships.
At least four conservative U.S. dioceses and dozens of individual Episcopal parishes have voted to leave the national denomination since 2003, with many affiliating themselves instead with like-minded Anglican leaders in African and elsewhere.
The Vatican announcement was kept under wraps until the last moment: The Vatican only announced Levada's briefing Monday night, and Levada only flew back to Rome at midnight after briefing Catholic bishops and Williams about the decision.

VATICAN IRKED BY ' BLASPHEMOUS' VIRGIN MARY TV SPOOF IN ISRAEL

The Vatican said Friday it has formally complained to the Israeli government about an Israeli TV show that ridiculed Jesus and Mary in an offensive act of intolerance.

The Israeli foreign ministry said the segment wouldn't be shown again and that its host, well-known Israeli comedian Lior Shlein, had apologized. In the program, Shlein sarcastically denied Christian traditions - that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus walked on water - saying he was doing so as a lesson to Christians who deny the Holocaust.
It was a reference to the Vatican's recent lifting of the excommunication of a bishop who denied 6 million Jews were killed during World War II. The rehabilitation sparked outrage among Jews. A statement from the Vatican press office said its representative in Israel complained to the government about the segment, which was broadcast recently on private Channel 10, one of Israel's three main TV stations, during Shlein's late-night comedy talk show. In the clip, the Vatican said, Mary and Joseph were ridiculed with blasphemous words and images that amounted to a vulgar and offensive act of intolerance toward the religious sentiments of the believers in Christ.

In the show, Mary is said to have become pregnant at 15, thanks to a schoolmate. It said Jesus could never have walked on water because he was so fat he was ashamed to leave the house, let alone go to the Sea of Galilee with a bathing suit. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the ministry approached Channel 10 based on the papal nuncio's complaints, and was told the segment would not air again. Palmor said the station's legal adviser had also already sent a letter of apology to an attorney who represents a Christian group who had been offended by the segment. Palmor said Shlein apologized live on Wednesday, and said he didn't mean to offend anyone. The clip was a sarcastic response to the Vatican's rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson, who said in an interview broadcast on Swedish state TV that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust and that only 200,000 or 300,000 Jews were killed. he Vatican's rehabilitation of Williamson sparked outrage that only abated after Pope Benedict XVI met with Jewish leaders at the Vatican last week. During his audience, the German-born pope issued a strong denunciation of anti-Semitism and said it was unacceptable for anyone - particularly a clergyman - to deny or minimize the Holocaust. The Vatican has demanded that Williamson, a member of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, recant before he can be admitted as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. On Thursday, the government of Argentina, where Williamson had been living, ordered him expelled within 10 days. It cited an immigration problem but also said his comments about the Holocaust had profoundly insulted Argentina, Jews and all of humanity. The British-born Williamson had already been removed as director of the society's La Reja seminary. He has apologized for causing distress to the pope but has not recanted. He has said he would only correct himself if he is satisfied after a review of the evidence, but has said that would take time.

HOLOCAUST DENYING BISHOP HAS BEEN ' SILENCED'

VATICAN CITY - An ultraconservative society recently rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI silenced one of its bishops Tuesday and distanced itself from his claim that no Jews were gassed during World War II.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, also asked for forgiveness from the pope for the "dramatic consequences" of Bishop Richard Williamson's comments.
The Vatican press office issued Bishop Fellay's statement as part of its own efforts to quell an outcry among Jews that Benedict had removed Bishop Williamson's 20-year-old excommunication, despite his views on the Holocaust.
Bishop Fellay said he has forbidden Bishop Williamson from speaking publicly about any historical or political questions and that his views "don't reflect in any way the position of the society." Bishop Fellay himself referred to the "genocide of Jews" by Nazis.
"We ask forgiveness of the supreme pontiff and all the men of good will for the dramatic consequences of this act," Bishop Fellay said.
Benedict rehabilitated Bishop Williamson, Bishop Fellay and two other members of the society last week as part of his efforts to bring the traditionalist society, which opposes many of the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, back into the Vatican's fold.
Bishops Williamson, Fellay and the two other bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago after they were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent.
Jewish groups denounced Benedict for embracing Bishop Williamson, who denied during an interview broadcast last week on Swedish state TV that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He said about 200,000 or 300,000 were killed.
The Vatican has stressed that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Bishop Williamson's views. But amid increasing outcry from Jewish groups, it intensified its defense of Benedict's record denouncing anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
On Tuesday, Vatican Radio aired a lengthy program to mark Holocaust remembrance day, recalling Benedict's 2006 visit to Auschwitz, his 2005 visit to the main synagogue in Cologne, Germany, and other remarks in which he has denounced the "insane, racist ideology" that produced the Holocaust.
Video clips of those remarks were posted on Vatican links on the Holy See's new YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/vatican. Vatican Radio also ran an interview with an Auschwitz survivor.
On Monday, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, ran a front-page article saying Bishop Williamson's views were "unacceptable" and violated church teaching.
The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants said the Vatican's attempts to reject Bishop Williamson's views were necessary but insufficient.
"At a minimum, the Vatican should now demand that Williamson repudiate his heinous views," said the group's vice president, Elan Steinberg.